Can Large‐Scale Satellite Products Track the Effects of Atmospheric Dryness and Soil Water Deficit on Ecosystem Productivity Under Droughts?

Abstract Drought stress, characterized by increased vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and soil water content (SWC) deficit, significantly impacts ecosystem productivity (GPP). Accurately assessing these factors in satellite remote sensing (RS) GPP products is crucial for understanding the large‐scale eco...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xiaorong Wang, Zhengfei Guo, Kun Zhang, Zheng Fu, Calvin K. F. Lee, Dedi Yang, Matteo Detto, Yongguang Zhang, Jin Wu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2025-04-01
Series:Geophysical Research Letters
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL110785
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Summary:Abstract Drought stress, characterized by increased vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and soil water content (SWC) deficit, significantly impacts ecosystem productivity (GPP). Accurately assessing these factors in satellite remote sensing (RS) GPP products is crucial for understanding the large‐scale ecological consequences of drought. However, the accuracy of RS GPP in capturing the effects of VPD and SWC deficit, compared to EC flux data, remains under‐investigated. Here we evaluated 10 RS GPP products and their mean (RSmean) concerning VPD and SWC deficit across diverse ecosystems along a dryness gradient. Our results revealed that RSmean and individual products generally capture the GPP response direction (VPD: mainly negative, SWC deficit: mixed positive/negative) but consistently misestimate the absolute GPP changes. This discrepancy is ecosystem‐specific and consistent across all RS products, underscoring the need to enhance RS products to better account for ecosystem‐specific VPD effects and non‐linear SWC deficit responses, thereby improving RS GPP accuracy under drought.
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007